


twin suns

by tripletmoons



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Fix-It, Gen, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-19
Updated: 2018-06-27
Packaged: 2019-05-25 06:39:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14971238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tripletmoons/pseuds/tripletmoons
Summary: Obi-Wan Kenobi is six years old when he meets Ben.It goes like this: he falls asleep in the Temple and wakes up in the sand.





	1. Chapter 1

Obi-Wan Kenobi is six years old when he meets Ben.

It goes like this: he falls asleep in the Temple and wakes up in the sand.

He has never left the Jedi Temple. What he knows of deserts comes from discussions of biomes and climates, holovids and holoscreens, and the complaints of Padawans returning from distant, dusty planets.

But when he wakes up in one, he  _can feel it_ : as real as smooth marble underfoot, as real as the weight of a training saber in hand, as real as the milk and powder smell of the Créche.

It’s _real._

All around him, golden dunes rise in waves, wavering with a heat that strips the water from his skin and parches his throat. Sand grits against his skin, cutting in and leaving scrapes. Above him, twin suns glare down, scorching an already burning world.

He _feels it._

He knows this place, the name of the planet rings in his head like a bell:  _Tatooine, Tatooine, Tatooine_. 

"Tatooine." He repeats. It tastes heavy in his mouth, important. The Force swells, plump with sensation: the smell of spice and sweat, the feel of hot desert winds, the distant call of an enormous creature, the taste of a bitter fruit on his tongue. Behind him something shifts, the Force condensing in a way that raises the hair on the back of his neck.

There is someone behind him. He turns.

Like a mirage, a man wavers into existence. He is dressed like a Jedi, but dirtier: ragged brown robes, stained white under-robes, a battered lightsaber clipped to the belt. His hair is silver and wispy, his face lined with age and sorrow and joy. 

Obi-Wan puts a hand over his eyes and peers at the man. In the Force, under the feel of the desert, the man is deep and far-reaching like an ocean or ancient tree roots; settled, like a rock in a steam. Visually, he is the oldest, most tired human Obi-Wan has ever seen. 

He kind of reminds Obi-Wan of Grandmaster Yoda.

And somehow, beyond his ephemeral resemblance to the Jedi Order’s tiny green Grandmaster, Obi-Wan knows him. His names rings:  _Ben Ben Ben._ An important, heavy name, just like  _Tatooine_. 

Slowly and carefully, Ben sits cross-legged on the sand across from him. Grandmaster Yoda sometimes complains of aching knees; this man looks like he has aching  _everything_. "Hello, young one." Ben greets; his smile makes him look even more sorrowful. 

"Ben." Obi-Wan murmurs. "I know you. I know you and I know this place. How do I know?" 

"How do you think you know?" Ben asks. 

Ben even speaks like a Jedi Master, asking questions when Obi-Wan is looking for answers. "I don't know why. That's why I asked you." Obi-Wan huffs, crossing his arms. Then he uncrosses them because it's unfit for a Jedi to stand like that. 

Ben softens with amusement, a glint sparking to life in his eyes. "What does the Force say?" He prods. "What do you sense?" 

 _Sense?_  To think of it, Obi-Wan's been sensing a lot. Ben's emotions aren’t just in his face, they’re tangible. The Force is vivid and present and waiting. He can feel it in a way he is only familiar with through successful meditation. He reaches out, touching the eddies of the Force and then reaching  _deeper_. Ben is like the desert, like master Yoda, like a shattered mirror,  _no-_  like a reflection in a spoon, distorted but familiar.  _So familiar._

Realization dawns like the sun rising over Coruscant. 

"You're me." Obi-Wan gasps. It rings with truth.

"Yes."

Obi-Wan looks out over the golden dunes, the desert that seems to be lodged in Ben's marrow, marking his very Force presence. "You live here, don't you?" He says hesitantly.

Ben's teeth gleam through his beard. Again, something about it is sad. A reflection in a spoon  _and_ a broken mirror. 

"Why don't you live in the temple? What happened to you?” Obi-Wan blurts, then, remembering his manners: "Master."

The Force roils, emotion gathers in the air, so strong it knocks him back a step and into a vision:

( _A platoon drops to the field, troopers dressed in gleaming white armor and moving in formation. A blow to the side, shattering ribs and sending him over a cliff and into water. Heat and agony. Pain. Anakin, please, Anakin, no.  Blood on smooth marble, a death quiet and an empty home_. _My men wouldn’t do this. They wouldn’t-._ )

Obi-Wan gasps, aching. The world around him trembles for a moment, flickering like a glitching screen, until Ben wraps around him, swallowing him up in an embrace. "Oh, young one, I am sorry. I do not have control of myself quite yet and I wasn't expecting-. I am sorry. My barriers are not settled yet." Ben might look frail, but his grip is strong, anchoring.

"Wh _at-_." Obi-Wan's voice cracks, wavering with emotion.  _What happened to you? Who are those people? Who is Anakin?_ He grasps at his emotions, trying to shove them away, and shakes when he can't.  _Release them to the force. Release them to the force._ He can't- he can't. Shame settles into the mix. He can't - he can't.

"Oh,  _no_. Young one, it's okay to be upset. I showed you something upsetting. It's  _natural_ to be upset. I'm sorry I showed you that. I can't answer your questions about it, but I am sorry I showed you."

Obi-Wan hunkers deeper into Ben's embrace, hiding his face in the man's robe. "It isn't the Jedi way to-." 

Ben rocks a little. "Sentients feel, young one. It's what we  _do_. It's natural." 

"Not for Jedi." 

"Yes, for Jedi." 

"No." 

"Yes-." Ben sighs, shaking his head, his whiskery chin rubbing Obi-Wan's hair. "I forgot how stubborn I was.” He mutters. “Just let me-." 

( _"The Force amplifies emotions." He repeats, insistent. He knows, to his bones, how easy it is to be swept up._

_"Feeling emotions, being guided by them, isn’t inherently wrong." Qui-Gon says, face solemn. "Think about it."_

_Ben doesn't need to think. He can remember his Padawan as he was: bright and incandescent with a big heart. He can remember his Padawan, young and new to the Temple, saying_ _I just want to free the slaves._

_"Anger can lead to injustice, driving you to seek justice. Possessiveness can be channeled into protection and self awareness."_

_"Yes, feeling emotions isn't the problem, especially as you're going to feel them anyway-."_

_"The problem is being_ controlled _by your emotions, but", he swallows, "the Force makes that easier."_

_"Yes it does, but that's true of all emotions: righteousness can lead to self-righteousness, contemplation can lead to inaction. detachment can lead to dissociation."_

_"A choice, oh-."_ )

"Oh-." Obi-Wan breathes and lets the knowledge settle him. It rattles his brain, shakes the edges of his vision, but his thoughts slowly clear until: "Wait how did you know what I-." He leans back, looking into Ben's weathered face. "Are you reading my mind?" 

Ben raises a brow eloquently, laughingly. "Youngling, we are  _in_  your mind." 

"Oh." Obi-Wan looks away to hide his blush. He's heard of mindscapes - in stories and legends and from the Masters but-. “ _Oh.”_ He says again, more meaningfully. “This isn’t just a vision, is it?”

"No." Ben says, rubbing a hand down Obi-Wan's spine before separating. “This is not just a vision.”

Obi-Wan mirrors him, crossing his legs and wiping his face dry. The desert wavers, like the whole things is a mirage, before stabilizing. He tries not to mourn the loss of contact too loudly. It, evidently, doesn’t work since Ben places a gentle hand on his knee.

“So”, Obi-Wan sniffs, “you're me and you lived here on Tatooine, but what are you doing here in my head?" He glares wetly. "And don't ask me to ask the Force!"

"I won't. It's- in the future bad things happen." He holds up a hand, cutting of Obi-Wan's questions before they can fully articulate beyond  _no kidding_. “I can’t tell you too much about it because it’ll hurt your mind. I am a Force construct, so all of my memories, all of my knowledge is in the Force – is the Force. You got a bundle of my more painful memories and it hurt you because you’re so young and untrained.”

“Oh, a Force construct… I don’t understand.“

“Essentially, I died and-.”

“ _Died?_ ”

“Yes. But before that, over the years, I packed away everything that I am and gave it to the Force. I am, essentially, part of the Force and conscious of it.”

Obi-Wan paled. “You’re a ghost.”

Ben looks heavenward, into the glare of the suns.

“You’re _haunting_ me _._ ”

Ben pulls a face. “I suppose, in some ways, that is an apt descriptor. But I would rather say that I am here to guide you.”

The Force swells again, a feeling like standing on the edge of a drop and waiting to jump, a feeling like wheels spinning. Again, the world glitches, wavering.

Obi-Wan recalls the men in burnished armor, the boy named Anakin who felt so precious and so hateful, the agony of an empty home. It doesn’t take a leap of logic to figure why he may need a guide. “Bad things happen and you want to change it.” He says. It rings true.

“Yes.” Ben nods.

Obi-Wan licks his lips; they’re rough, cracked like dried mud. “How can I help?”

The world blurs, _wavering, wavering, wavering_. Ben’s smile isn’t so sad anymore. “First, you can wake up.”

"Wait-!"


	2. Chapter 2

Obi-Wan aches _everywhere_ : his skull, his skin, his muscles, his _hair_. He’s feels flattened like he sparred ten Senior Initiates in a row and every one of them used unnecessarily dirty tricks to win. He shifts, moving to sit up; his head rings, the air in his lungs rattles out of his dried throat, scraping past cracked lips. 

He doesn’t try to move again.

There’s a steady pressure on his temples, fingers digging in soothingly.

He blinks his eyes open. He expects the twin glare of two suns, an endless sky, the wrinkled face of Ben, sand in his eyes.

Instead, he blearily meets the steady gaze of Grandmaster Yoda.

“Know where you are do you, youngling?” The Grandmaster asks, blurring into a green blob and then back.

Obi-Wan blinks, opens his mouth to say _the desert, the sand, why are you here-?_

But that’s wrong.

He shifts his gaze, unsteadily following the stone arches of the ceiling; his nose burns with incense and antiseptic; he listens to the slow steady beep of machines. He reaches out for the force and it’s like moving through syrup but eventually the Temple trickles in: the laughter of children and the rasp of robes across the floor, the smell of ancient books and flowering things, the movement of water.

He’s in the Halls of Healing. He’s back in the Jedi Temple.

_"First,” Ben had said, “you can wake up.”_

He’s awake.

Somehow it feels the other way around. Like he’s fallen asleep on a dusty world and ended up somewhere less real. He doesn’t understand how the realest place he’s ever known, the only place he’s ever known, can feel like less in comparison to a vision – a dream – to _Tatooine_ , but it does.

He looks back to the ever-patient face of Master Yoda and _oh_ , maybe it has something to do with the pounding in his head, the feeling that something in his skull is trying to bash its way out. Yoda becomes a green blob again, the world blurs.

Darkness greets him.

+++

He wakes up for the second time feeling like he’d sparred with five Initiates in a row and came out victorious half the time. His brain aches less; his memories of Tatooine and Ben are lodged in there like a holovid, high-definition and crystal clear. They're not going anywhere anytime soon. 

He blinks his eyes open and Yoda is sitting next to his bedside, deftly cutting an orange fruit into triangles with his claws. “Back with us now you are, young Obi-Wan?” He asks, holding out a slice.

Obi-Wan shakily takes the fruit and it bursts tangy and sharp across his tongue, soothing his throat and burning the cuts on his lips. “Yes, Master.” He rasps, looking around at the Hall, unchanged since the last he saw it and bathed in midday light. “How long have I been here?”

“Hmm,” Yoda reaches out to the bedside table and passes over a glass of water, which Obi-Wan downs greedily, “three days it has been since you entered these Halls.”

“Three days!” Obi-Wan exclaims, fumbling with his drink. He has only ever stayed overnight in the Halls of Healing before. Three days is-is a long time to be asleep. Ben did say that his memories hurt Obi-Wan but enough to knock him out for _three days?!_

“What is- was wrong with me?”

Yoda gently takes the glass from his unresisting hands, setting it aside. “Force-exhaustion. A vision you had. Very deep into the Force you went. Tire you out it did. Hard on you body it was.”

“Yes- I mean no. Not a vision, Master Yoda.” He looks away, peering into the corners of the room and half-expecting Ben to be standing there. “I’m being haunted.”

“Haunted? _Hm_.”

Obi-Wan can feel the doubt in the air, the expectation of an explanation. Maybe labeling Ben as a ghost was a bit too simple of him. Yoda hands him another slice of fruit and, still chewing, he expands: “I met my future self, Master. He is as old as you.”

Yoda raises a tufted brow, his expression an eerie mimic of Ben’s. “Six hundred years he is?”

Obi-Wan chokes. “Not- not quite that old, Grandmaster.”

  _Six hundred. Six hundred years old._ He knows Yoda is old but he didn’t know he was _ancient_. He looks younger than Ben, less shattered mirror, less tired. _Six hundred years old!_

“Flatter you are.” Yoda chortles. “Long lived my species is.”

“I’ll say.” Obi-Wan mutters. He blushes when Yoda laughs again. “Sorry, Master. But he _is_ old even if he isn’t your idea of old.” He reaches out, his force-touch still syrupy slow and brushes against Master Yoda’s aura. Yoda doesn’t move but surprise diffuses his Force signature like the branches of a gnarled tree rattling in the wind. “He feels like you.” Obi-Wan explains.

Yoda’s gaze pierces him like he’s peeling back layers of Obi-Wan’s soul. “Many shapes visions take. Many forms they have.”

It takes a moment for Obi-Wan to understand what Yoda is getting at. His feels his face set mulishly in a way the Créche Masters always disapprove of: not a proper expression for a Jedi, not diplomatic enough. “He wasn’t- isn’t a vision. He didn’t feel like one.”

“Always in motion the future is. Strange forms it sometimes takes.” Yoda explains, still intent. Obi-Wan isn’t sure how he feels about his future self being called a _strange form._ “Concrete no visions are. Think about them you should, but put faith in them you should not.”

“He isn’t a vision. He’s something else.” Obi-Wan repeats insistently. He opens his mouth to say _he’s a_ _Force construct_ but something stops him: a vague feeling of warning, of _not yet._ Instead he holds out his hands, showing off reddened skin and scattered thin scrapes. “Look, I got these in my dream from the sand and the sun.”

Yoda’s ears lift up and forward, his expression shading towards interested. “Notice the cuts and sunburns we did. Dehydrated you also were. From your vision you say these come?”

“From my _dream,_ yes. I was on a desert planet.” He doesn’t say Tatooine for the same reason he doesn’t talk more about Ben the Force construct: warning bells.

Yoda rubs his chin thoughtfully, leaning back. “Strong in the Unifying Force you are. Strong your visions are. Affect your body and mind they must. Rare such phenomena is but not unknown.”

Obi-Wan opens his mouth to launch another argument.

Master Yoda shakes his head. “Deeply affect you your visions do. Learn from them you should. But consume you they will if distance yourself you do not. With the now you must concern yourself.”

Obi-Wan crosses his arms before he can stop himself.

Yoda is a very wise Jedi Master. He knows that at _six hundred years old,_ Yoda is very experienced. But he also, for the first time, thinks Yoda is wrong.

He can remember the burn of heat-death on his skin and in his heart. He can remember flashes of gleaming white armor and battlefields. He can remember the deepness of Ben, the unending well of experience: sad and joyous. _Ben Ben Ben:_ Ben who is an entire person and haunting him.

_Yoda is wrong._ The thought makes him uncomfortable, unsettled, but it rings true. _Yoda is_ wrong. Ben is _not_ a mere vision.

If the Grandmaster hears his thoughts, he doesn’t show it.

He does shoot a look at Obi-Wan's crossed arms though.

Obi-Wan uncrosses them.

Master Yoda gives him another slice of fruit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is another short one. Mostly because our resident Force Ghost is a little too tuckered out from time-travel to interact much with his younger self. This will be changing in the next chapter though, so stay tuned!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is only semi-edited and may undergo changes within the next 24 hrs, fair warning.

After Master Yoda leaves Obi-Wan doesn’t mention his dream again. If the wisest Master in the order, _the Grandmaster_ , doesn’t believe him then why would the Healers? It’s a rhetorical question because _they wouldn’t._

They think they want to understand though, so while running tests they ask him a billion questions.

They prick his finger, asking: “What do you remember?”

They take a throat swab, asking: “What do _you_ think happened?”

They scan his brain, asking: “We had to heal dehydration and sunburns and scrapes, do you have any idea what would cause those?”

 _I don’t know._ He thinks. _Maybe a desert?_

He doesn’t say that though. He keeps his sarcasm deep inside where no one will hear it. (Thankfully, mind reading a Force-exhausted six year old is a big no go.)

What he does say, over and over again, is this: “Yoda said it was a vision.”

He already gave his answers to the Grandmaster and the Grandmaster didn’t want to hear it. The Healers won’t want to hear it either, so they get the Grandmaster’s answer instead of his.

“Yoda said it was a vision. Yoda said it was a vision. Yoda said it was a vision.”

_No comment. No comment. No comment._

He doesn't want to talk with the Healers. His time is better spent thinking.

( _A platoon drops to the field, troopers dressed in gleaming white armor and moving in formation. A blow to the side, shattering ribs and sending him over a cliff and into water. Heat and agony. Pain. Anakin, please, Anakin, no.  Blood on smooth marble, a death quiet and an empty home_. _My men wouldn’t do this. They wouldn’t-._ )

He has a lot to think about after all. 

+++

All right, maybe he should’ve given the Healers  _something_ because they don’t want to let him go.

Now that he's spent actual time with them beyond the odd minor injury and bi-yearly checkup, he realizes Healers are like Loth-cats with a bone when it comes to injured patients. They sunk their teeth into him and now they want to chow down. They want to know _everything_. They argued for _just one more day_ and then, when he woke up, tried for another. 

_Youngling, we just want to know what happened. A simple vision doesn’t just give one injuries and Force exhaustion. We need to run more tests. You have to stay until we know what happened._

Uh, no way.

Obi-Wan might not be a Padawan yet but he has enough diplomatic training to hold people to their promises. The Healers will not be dinning on him another day or, if he can help it, ever again. 

To quote Quinlan Vos, a Padawan that Obi-Wan typically goes out of his way to avoid quoting, or speaking to, or seeing, or thinking of at all:

_Frak the Halls of Healing._

“ _Initiate Kenobi.”_

“Master Gosular! Uh, I thought you weren’t supposed to read my-.”

“You were _projecting.”_

“Oh…”

“ _Hem_!”  

+++

He is grudgingly released after the agreed upon single day of observation. He leaves the Halls of Healing unblemished: sunburns and scrapes vanished, throat wet, lips sea-glass smooth.

(He likes to believe the Healers are impressed instead of frustrated with his diplomacy skills. He doesn’t check the Force to be sure.)

If it weren’t for his crystalline recall of his desert dream, it would be like nothing was different. Like nothing fundamentally altering had occurred. It would be like the Master Yoda was right in proclaiming _force vision_.

But he can remember. The dream loops through his head on repeat; Ben’s tidings are even more foreboding in the waking world: _Bad things happen_.

Bad things like war and death and fire. Obi-Wan has come to the conclusion that the old Jedi was understating. War, death, fire. Ben should’ve said _terrible things happen._

But also:

He can’t forget the feeling of standing on the edge of a drop and waiting to jump; he can’t forget the feeling of wheels spinning: _curthunk curthunk curthunk_.

It took him a day of contemplation intense enough to make a Master proud and to frustrate/concern three Healers, but now he can put words to the things Ben showed him.

Obi-Wan might not look any different than he did three days ago, but he carries that knowledge in him: _bad things happened_ but they can be _changed_.

Things can be changed, the ghost of his future self is haunting him, and the Masters expect him to go to _class_!

Unbelievable.

He didn’t argue – sorry, _discuss_ \- his way out of the Halls of Healing to go to class. He needs to meditate, he needs to sleep, he needs to be _alone._ If Ben wouldn’t show himself to Obi-Wan in a near empty infirmary, there’s no way he’ll show while Obi-Wan is surrounded by children. 

He needs to see Ben soon. He doesn’t even know _how_ to help yet, how to change things.

First: _you can wake up._ Second: _?????_

It is most certainly not: _you can_   _go to class._

He needs guidance from his future ghost self, not to mathematically work out-.

“Obi-Wan!” Someone shouts, ramming into his side and wrapping their arms around his waist in a rib-crushing hug. It knocks the scowl from his face, the concerns from his head, and the air from his lungs.

There is only one Initiate bold enough to hug him like this in front of the Bearcat Clan dorms.

“Bant-.” He gasps.

“Obi-Wan, I was so worried! You’ve been gone for three days! Master Vant couldn’t tell me what was wrong with you and I wasn’t allowed to visit and-!”

“Bant – can’t – _breath_ -!”

She releases him in a hurry, webbed hands fluttering. “Oh, Obi, I’m so sorry! I was just-.”

Cradling his aching ribs, Obi-Wan chokes out, “I was fine until- until your sneak attack, Bant. I might ne-need an escort back to the Healing Halls now.”

“Oh, Obi-” she wails, genuine distress leaking into the Force, “I didn’t mean to-.” 

 “S-sorry.” Obi-Wan straightens; his coughs peters into gentle laughter and he places a hand on her shoulder. Sometimes, he forgets Bant is two years younger, especially when she’s hauling him around like a stuffed animal.

“That was a mean joke to make when you were so distressed. I’m _fine_ Bant. Nothing is wrong with me. Your hug just knocked the breath from my lungs a little.” He grips her shoulder tighter, eyeing her arms dubiously. “I always forget how strong you are for such a scrawny-.”

“Hey!” She heaves her shoulder, knocking his hand away. The distress in the air turns towards annoyed amusement. “I’m not scrawny, I’m a Mon Calamari! I just carry my muscle differently.” She jabs his chest with an accusing finger. “And _you_ were with the Healers for three days Obi-Wan, so forgive me for worrying-.”

“ _Hem hem_.”

Obi-Wan and Bant straighten and turn in concert to stare up at Healer Gosular disapproving mien.

“Initiate Kenobi, Initiate Eerin.” He greets implacably.

"Healer Goslar!" They proclaim in completely different tones. 

Obi-Wan shoots Bant a discrete look; her eyes are  _shining_. The way she stressed the _Healer_ part of that phrase sets alarm bells ringing in his head, but he pushes it aside for later.

Healer Goslar’s gaze slowly sinks to the way Obi-Wan is cradling his ribs. His eyes gleam _._ “Initiate Kenobi if you are re-injured and truly require an escort back to the Halls of Healing I would-.”

Visions of another long wait in bed dance through his head, accompanied by more blood draws and tests and-. 

Obi-Wan smacks a hand behind Bant’s head, pushing her into a bow alongside him.

“Thank you for your offer Healer Goslar, but I really must prepare for classes now. I have been missing for three days after all. I wouldn’t want to miss class.” He says quickly, snapping back upright and dragging Bant into the dorms behind him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am trying out a new writing style in 'twin suns' and while I was very excited to experiment at the beginning, I am losing steam now. However, I shall not let a lack of steam defeat me for I am no steam engine! I'll still try to reliably update twice a month at the least. I will not wayside this story!
> 
> Additionally, the exchange if Obi-Wan did talk to the Healers about Ben: 
> 
> Obi-Wan: Hi, I’m haunted by the ghost of my dead future self from a dystopic galaxy. I think he needs me to help him save the universe. 
> 
> Healers, realising they bit off more than they can chew: Alright, so this is not our division. You have an appointment with a Mind Healer at-

**Author's Note:**

> Well here it is, unbeta'd and hopefully engaging enough.


End file.
